Founded in Switzerland in 1986, it is a pharmaceutical giant with more than 100 years of experience. In 2020, sales reached 66.8 billion US dollars, employing more than 100,000 people, representing drugs such as diazepam, ceftriaxone, monoclonal antibodies and so on. It has become the leader of global biopharmaceutical research and development.
In the course of nearly 120 years of development, it has gone through ups and downs and almost went bankrupt several times.
The first bankruptcy crisis
During the First World War, Roche was suspected of being pro-German by the French because he opened a factory in Germany; at the same time, he was suspected by the Germans of providing medicines to the French, sandwiched between the countries, and was boycotted by the countries and suffered heavy losses. To make matters worse, the Russian Revolution broke out, which led to the displacement of nearly 1 million Swiss francs. Huge losses forced Roche to restructure its assets.
Until 1933, Roche got the synthesis process of vitamin C, vitamins gradually became the pillar products of Roche, by the 1970s, Roche gradually became the world's largest vitamin enterprise, with a global vitamin market share of up to 50%-70%.
In addition to vitamins, Roche has also successfully developed a blockbuster in the field of sleeping pills: diazepam. Diazepam was approved for listing in 1963, and at its peak, annual sales reached $1 billion, and sales in the United States reached 2.3 billion pieces.
These early achievements of Roche are basically in the field of chemical pharmaceuticals, and what really makes Roche take off as a biopharmaceutical giant has to start with the acquisition of Genentech:
With the acquisition of Genentech, Roche embarks on a path to biotechnology innovation
Roche and Genentech can be said to be mutual achievements, Roche because of the urgent need to expand product pipelines, into the field of biopharmaceuticals, has been looking for mergers and acquisitions or cooperation opportunities.
Genentech, on the other hand, is because of the difficulties encountered in the development of alteplase, resulting in the company to the brink of bankruptcy, the stock price fell sharply, and the olive branch was urgently needed. In this way, Roche seized the opportunity to acquire nearly 60% of Genentech for $1.537 billion, officially taking control of Genentech.
Looking back at the history of Roche, this is almost the most cost-effective and critical acquisition of Roche, which has transformed Roche from a chemical drug giant to a later biological drug giant, which is considered to be the benchmark of biological innovation technology, which is inseparable from the contribution of Genentech.
Throughout the 1980s, Roche acquired nearly 15 companies, gradually forming four business segments with pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, vitamins and specialty chemicals as the core. In addition to Genentech, Roche also spent $300 million to buy a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) patent, Roche on the one hand through the global patent licensing fee, on the other hand, actively developed and launched PCR diagnostic reagents, this acquisition is the second largest cost-effective transaction in Roche's acquisition history.
The acquisition of 60 percent of Genentech's stake cost $1.5 billion, while the acquisition of the remaining 40 percent cost $46.8 billion, a sky-high acquisition that was not optimistic. On the one hand, because such a sky-high price almost hollowed out Roche's ancestral family foundation; on the other hand, everyone doubts Roche's ability to fully control Genentech, and many excellent biotechnology companies have lost their original vitality and innovation ability after being acquired by pharmaceutical giants.
Why did Roche spend so much to acquire Genentech? Because Genentech's license to Roche products expires in 2015, Roche will lose its initiative in Genentech products, and sales of these authorized products exceed one-third of Roche's total sales.
Change you, how do you do it?
Roche invested heavily in R&D to create a dazzling R&D product pipeline
No pharmaceutical company pen Roche is willing to spend money on research and development, Roche in 2000-2020, the cumulative R & D investment of up to 169 billion US dollars, more than the same period of Pfizer, become the highest cumulative investment in research and development of pharmaceutical giants.
Huge investment has been made to create roche's three core innovative drug research and development units, genentech (gRED), Roche (pRED) and Chinese and foreign pharmaceuticals. Among them, As one of the world's strongest biotechnology companies in research and development, Genentech has contributed huge new drugs to Roche's product line and brought more than $10 billion in sales. At the same time, the Japanese pharmaceutical company Acquired by Roche has also greatly enriched the original product pipeline.
In contrast, Roche's own son pRED's performance is not satisfactory, but Roche still vigorously cultivates and invests in it, and distributes the research and development of nucleic acid drugs to pRED, perhaps his own son will have a role in the research and development of nucleic acid drugs.
Think about domestic medicine from the international pharmaceutical giants
So far, we have sorted out the development history of pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Roche, etc., and we should be able to see the common points of the rise of some pharmaceutical companies, such as having a fortune product - large-scale mergers and acquisitions, strong alliances, expanding product pipelines - high investment in research and development, seizing global market share, etc.; almost every pharmaceutical giant has come this way.
The pharmaceutical industry competition is huge, becoming a big giant is basically experienced in the global market fight, in the global changeable market environment, with a strong sense of crisis and crisis treatment methods, excellent leaders can basically see the next few years, more than ten years of change trends, which is a long research and development cycle of pharmaceutical companies, especially important.
Pfizer's sales model, Roche's bio-innovation technology, Novo Nordisk's field specialization, the highlights of each pharmaceutical company are put forward and practiced by one of the important managers, and the quality and ability of pharmaceutical company leaders are important factors that cannot be ignored.
From the history of the development of international pharmaceutical giants, can we benchmark the development path of China's pharmaceutical enterprises? Regarding mergers and acquisitions, about R&D pipelines, about excellent leaders, which A-share companies do you think of? Welcome to comment and share.